Blog lands dueling professors in court

A university professor in Canada has made the poor choice of publishing another faculty member’s name to her blog’s “Death Watch.”

Via CBC Nova Scotia:

A professor at Cape Breton University is taking a colleague to court, saying she feels threatened because of his website.

Celeste Sulliman, a professor of communications, appeared in court Wednesday to seek a peace bond against David Mullan, a professor of history and arts.

Sulliman said she fears personal injury because Mullan included her name on his “death watch,” a list he keeps on his Bear Blog.

“She has made two allegations against Bear Blog that I have uttered threats by an electronic means,” Mullan told CBC News.

The communications department ended up on the list after an incident on International Women’s Day when, Mullan says, Sulliman’s students disrupted classes by reading a feminist poem.

Mullan said the problem wasn’t the poem, which is now posted on his blog, but the “uncollegial” behaviour displayed in the incident, so he put Sulliman’s department on “death watch” to make a point.

“It was merely my ironic means of drawing to attention the fact that I think some departments in the institution may have difficulty maintaining a certain intellectual standard,” he said.

Mullan is not backing down.

Though he has removed the communications department from his list, he continues to write about the case. “Watch whacked-out leftist Chicks using the legal system,” he wrote about the pending court hearing.

“This is me having a little fun,” Mullan said. “If Celeste wants theatre, I will give it to her.”